


Symmetry in Favor

by Kedreeva



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Confessions, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Other, Wing Grooming, Wing Oil, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 16:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: Five times Crowley preens Aziraphale's wings, and one time Aziraphale preens Crowley's.





	Symmetry in Favor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/gifts).

* * *

_I'm so into you, I can barely breathe_  
_And all I wanna do is to fall in deep_  
_But close ain't close enough_  
_'til we cross the line_

* * *

**I.**

After the oysters and the drinks and the company, Crowley had been pretty sure that their night was over. Aziraphale had been surprisingly pleasant company for the entire evening, teaching him about the local food Crowley had been too wary to try alone and telling him about the denizens he’d met in the past couple of weeks. Crowley had listened with some amount of attention to the stories, interested only in passing because he didn’t think he would actually meet any of the humans Aziraphale was so excited about.

Still, when things had wound down and the shops were closed and their glasses were empty, Crowley expected a goodbye.

Instead, Aziraphale said nothing when Crowley walked him back to where he stayed, and when he held the door behind him, Crowley followed him there, too. The place was bigger than it looked on the outside, and Crowley suspected he knew why and how, but neither of them mentioned it. Aziraphale suggested more drink, and Crowley accepted a mug when it was pressed into his hands, and they sat to continue their soft conversation.

Without warning and before he’d said a word, Aziraphale’s wings unfurled, stretching luxuriously wide and giving a little tremble of effort before he folded them loosely. They were every bit as beautiful as the first time Crowley had seen them on the wall, every white feather so clean it seemed to almost glow, but it was different now. Back then, Aziraphale’s wings had already been out; they’d never had any reason to hide them.

But for four thousand years now, they had. They had kept their wings hidden away from humans, from one another as well, and it felt almost… too _ much _ , to see them. It was all Crowley could do just to stare in mute wonder, skin prickling with anxiety over whether this was even _ allowed _ anymore.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked softly, breaking the spell. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Crowley managed hastily, averting his eyes down to his mug. He swallowed, trying to wrestle down the insistent leap of his heart. “You were saying?” Surely Aziraphale had been saying something- he’d been saying things the whole night, it wouldn't make any sense for him to stop now.

Aziraphale gave him a slightly dubious once-over, lips pursed and brow drawn, and then said: “It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Crowley stifled a sound of panic. Aziraphale had asked him to do something, or maybe say something, and he hadn’t heard a word of it, too wrapped up staring in admiration and worry. Whether or not they were allowed to see one another's wings anymore, he was positive they didn’t know one another well enough for him to go about ignoring Aziraphale and then_ telling _him so. 

"Sorry,” he said with a little wince. Demons weren’t supposed to _ apologize _, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn't want to be booted to the street for inattention, he wanted to keep the angel’s company. “I don’t mind, just got a bit distracted.”

Aziraphale’s relief both calmed and exacerbated Crowley’s worry. He’d said the right thing but he still had no idea what Aziraphale wanted him to do. “Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said, shifting to turn around in his seat and present Crowley his back, his wings moving to give Crowley unimpeded access.

“You, er… wh-what-” he started, then swallowed again. Aziraphale had just turned his back to him like it was nothing. Like they weren't supposed to be sworn enemies. It was the most vulnerable thing anyone had ever done in front of Crowley. He felt like he should set down the mug, or put both hands on it to keep from doing anything stupid. He didn’t want to make assumptions here. “Aziraphale?”

“It’s right at the edge,” Aziraphale told him, reaching over his shoulder with one hand and Crowley could see that his fingers didn’t quite reach the twitching feathers at the base of his wings, where they connected to his scapulas. “It’s been insufferable for hours now, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“So I just...” Crowley led, not letting go of his mug just yet.

“Scratch the left side a bit?” Aziraphale asked hopefully, catching Crowley’s gaze over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind.”

Crowley relaxed a little. That was easy. He could… he could do that. He could scratch an itch. In fact, he’d gotten very good at that in the metaphorical sense, and he saw no reason why he couldn’t help someone in the physical sense. Even if that someone was an angel. Even if that someone was an angel Crowley very badly wanted to get his hands on any way he could. Even if he wasn’t sure if they were even really friends, much less the _ touch my wings _ sort of people.

Still, Aziraphale had asked, and he didn’t seem to think it was a very big deal, so Crowley pried one hand away from his mug and reached across the gap between them.

The softest down from a mortal bird had nothing on the silk of Aziraphale’s feathers as Crowley wiggled his fingers into the thick bunch of tertiaries at the base of his wings. The skin beneath was hot, almost burningly so, and Crowley crooked his fingers a little to tip his nails against it. Aziraphale made a guttural noise of relief when Crowley began to scratch around a little, obviously hitting the right spot. Crowley carried on, seeking out itches around the base of Aziraphale’s wing, until Aziraphale twitched away from his touch and turned around.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale told him, looking far more relaxed than Crowley had ever seen him. He gave Crowley a measured look, and then offered a smile that Crowley couldn’t decipher. “Would you like- what I mean is... I could do the same for you, if you want? It feels nice even if it doesn’t itch.”

Crowley shook his head. There was no way he was going to let the angel touch his wings. He wouldn’t survive it. “I’m good,” he said, and told himself that he only imagined the shadow of disappointment that flickered through Aziraphale’s lovely eyes.

**II.**

Crowley fidgeted outside of the tent, sure that he wouldn’t be welcome but needing to apologize for what had gone down between them earlier that day. The guards at the edge of the camp hadn’t even looked at him once, nor had any of the others he slipped past in plain view. He’d left his armor at his own camp, dressed instead in the softer clothing of the local townsfolk.

In his hands, he grasped a small, leather-wrapped package of soft goat cheese and smoked venison. The angel had shown inclination toward good food once or twice in the times they had seen one another, and Crowley believed he knew enough about apologies to know that one usually brought something to them. He’d been unable to find any flowers and he hadn’t thought Aziraphale would enjoy him destroying them anyway, so food seemed like the next best thing.

That was, if Crowley ever worked up the courage to say something in the first place. Fortunately, or perhaps the opposite, a pained, frustrated noise from within took the decision out of his hands.

“Aziraphale? Are you alright?” he called quietly, face close to the furs serving as a door.

A long, very silent pause balanced awkwardly in the air before Aziraphale’s voice finally toppled it. “Crowley? What are you- oh, do come in before you’re seen.”

Crowley pushed aside the fur drape and shimmied past it into the tent. He froze barely a step inside, eyes fixed on Aziraphale’s tapered, white wings where they lay spread over the floor. He had one of them folded under his arm so he could get to the top of it, clearly in the middle of a sorely-needed preening. Rather than the smooth, shiny surface Crowley expected, Aziraphale’s wings looked a little like the back of a bedraggled porcupine.

He’d been _ moulting _.

“Oh,” Crowley said, heat flushing under his skin. He wouldn’t have come if he’d known he’d be intruding on such a private affair.

But Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice or care. “What are_ you _doing here?” he asked, a little severely, their earlier argument about neither of them doing their job anymore seemingly not quite forgotten. “What’ve you got?”

“Flowers,” Crowley said automatically, and then jumped like he’d heard a very loud noise and said quickly: “I mean, it’s food. Cheese, and some… uh… deer. I didn’t mean to- I should go.” He made to set the package down on the stack of tack near the door, but Aziraphale’s noisy shifting and plaintive protest drew him up short.

“Please! Don’t go. You- you’ve come a long way, haven’t you?” Aziraphale asked, moving his wings to make room for Crowley on the pile of blankets on the ground. “And you’ve brought lunch. At least come sit for a minute or two before you head back.”

Crowley hesitated, but he _ had _ come a long way, even if he’d just flown most of it, and even if he’d only gone a few steps, he always wanted more of the angel’s company. And, he reminded himself as he straightened, the package still in his hands, he’d come here for a reason. It seemed silly to leave without completing his mission just because Aziraphale had his wings out.

So he crossed the room, careful to step around the edges of Aziraphale’s wings, and collapsed into a sit with his legs bent and crossed. The action stirred up feather dust, bits of sheath Aziraphale had picked off so far. Aziraphale shot him a slightly embarrassed but warm smile, and let his wings slack to the floor to either side of him. They looked… itchy. Crowley had only moulted a couple of times here – something about Earth made their flying wings somewhat mortal, unable to repair themselves magically the way the others could – but he hadn’t enjoyed it a bit.

“It’s not really lunch,” Crowley said as he absently set the package on the furs between them, still staring and apparently unable to stop. “It’s… an apology. I shouldn’t have suggested that you disobey.”

Aziraphale gave him a thoughtful look, brows drawn like he couldn’t quite decide what to make of Crowley, despite how long they’d known each other. “I forgive you,” Aziraphale told him softly, and then looked down to reach for the package in a way which suggested he had no idea at all that he’d just pulled Crowley’s still-beating heart right out of his chest with three little words. “Did you really bring cheese?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said faintly. “And smoked deer.”

“Delightful,” Aziraphale burbled happily, his beautiful fingers tugging at the knots that kept the package closed. It fell open to reveal a slightly smushed round of cheese and a few strips of soft-smoked meat. “These people believe in living on porridge and bread. It’s been so _ bland _, you know. Well, I assume you know.”

“I do,” Crowley assured him, even though he did not. He’d avoided eating all of the bland things humans did with grass seeds. He’d gone quite out of his way to acquire these treats, partially because he assumed Aziraphale wouldn’t have.

Aziraphale took a moment to decide which food to try first, and eventually ended up plucking up a strip of meat and daintily pulling a sliver of it free to pop into his mouth, rather than try to gnaw off a chunk. Crowley watched him, shaking his head a little when Aziraphale offered some with a tip of his hand. They sat like that for a few bites before Aziraphale leaned a little to one side and lifted the wing on his opposite side.

“Would you- that is, it’s not something I can ask for help from the humans with,” Aziraphale began. “And we’re supposed to ride out from here tomorrow morning. I’ll never get all the sheaths off by myself, and riding horses is uncomfortable enough without...” He gestured, raising his wing a little to indicate the state of them.

Crowley froze, belly tight. “You want me to...” He gestured to Aziraphale’s wings, certain that he understood exactly what Aziraphale was asking him to do, but absolutely uncertain about why.

They did not just _ touch wings_. They weren’t those sorts of creatures, or at least Crowley had _ thought _ they weren’t those sorts of creatures. Scratching an itch for a friend, that was one thing. This, though… if he peeled a sheath wrong, if he preened out the vanes wrong, they would remain a little deformed until Aziraphale’s next moult. It was not nearly as casual a thing as Aziraphale made it seem.

But then, maybe it was that casual for Aziraphale. Maybe he really did just trust Crowley like that, even now. Even after their argument. Crowley had learned, in perhaps the worst way possible, that even small mistakes could completely ruin a thing- could completely ruin _ him _. Yet Aziraphale brushed it off like nothing. Crowley suspected he might have done so even if Crowley hadn’t brought him anything, if he’d just brought himself.

It left him with the distinct impression that maybe he was _ enough_, just on his own, at least where Aziraphale was concerned. The idea left him a bit breathless, his ears ringing so that he missed Aziraphale’s answer and only noticed because Aziraphale waggled a hand in front of him.

“Will you?” Aziraphale said, in the tone that said he was repeating himself.

“Of course,” Crowley answered automatically. He would do anything.

He set his hands to the pinfeathers covering Aziraphale’s wing. The sheaths were long-dried; Aziraphale must have been ignoring them for days, for them to be in such a state. Crowley didn’t comment, just gently rubbed his fingers over them, watching them sift and crumble apart under his touch, revealing the brand new, clean feathers.

The process was slow, made slower by the care Crowley took because the feathers were not his own. He blew gently across Aziraphale’s wing every few minutes, brushing it free of spent sheaths so he could continue working. Aziraphale finished the treats Crowley had brought, and then set to work on his other wing. They worked in the sort of silence that spoke of concentration, but its side conversation was one of ease and comfort.

After a while, Crowley’s entire world narrowed to the simple task of neatly removing a sheath, preening out the barbs to form a solid vane, and moving onto the next feather. There were hundreds of them, and he went through every one, running his hands over every newly-groomed portion of wing to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

Although he hardly noticed, it took them most of the night to get through both wings. Crowley finished first, likely because he had started on the wing Aziraphale had been working on already, and perhaps a little bit because he was more used to grooming his own wings. He helped with the final feathers on Aziraphale’s other wing, until they both lay pristine and gleaming.

Aziraphale ran one hand affectionately over his fresh feathers. “They haven’t looked this nice in… well, ever, I think. Thank you, my dear fellow.”

“It’s no trouble,” Crowley mumbled, not wanting to take his hands off of Aziraphale’s wing, but out of excuses to keep them there.

“Perhaps you’ll let me return the favor someday?” Aziraphale asked him, smiling when Crowley looked up in alarm.

“You don’t owe me, angel,” Crowley said, ignoring the faint look of disappointment that crossed Aziraphale’s features because it couldn’t really have _ been _ disappointment. There was no way that Aziraphale wanted to put that much work into helping a demon, even if it _ was _ a returned favor. He wasn’t even amenable to just not working against Crowley, if his reaction to Crowley’s suggestion that they stop canceling each other out was anything to go by.

“Perhaps I don’t,” Aziraphale conceded, pulling his wings away and folding them out of sight. “But I would like to sometime anyway.”

Crowley desperately hoped the heat he felt under his skin didn’t show in color. “I should go,” he said, instead of agreeing. “Dawn’s coming.”

He didn’t stay long enough to see the wistful look on Aziraphale’s face.

**III.**

It took longer than Crowley wanted but much less than Crowley expected to see the Globe filled with bodies for new showings of Hamlet. He had caught the ear of just a few influential folks, spread just a little extra coin around the streets, and watched the fallout as it snowballed slowly. He had been accurate to say that no one liked gloomy plays when their lives were also gloomy, but when things were a little more comfortable, humans enjoyed nothing better than watching other humans suffer. It was one of those human quirks that Crowley enjoyed about them, and it turned the atmosphere in the theater stands practically jovial.

Still, he found himself thinking after a couple of weeks, it was… without. Aziraphale had gone to do his blessing and Crowley’s tempting and he should have had no trouble with either, and been home again quickly. _ Was _ home again, as far as Crowley knew, and yet Crowley had not seen him at a single performance. Though Crowley would never admit it to anyone that asked, he’d attended every one in the hopes of running into the angel by organized chance.

He tried to tell himself it was because he wanted to be recognized for his work, but he hadn’t learned to lie to himself well enough for that. He just wanted to see Aziraphale again.

After three weeks, he gave in to his weakness and sought the angel out where he was staying across town, in a small, cozy inn. Crowley tried knocking upon the door but although he could feel the angelic presence on the other side, no answer came. He tried the door, and found it unlocked. Or at least, it unlocked for him.

“Aziraphale?” he called softly, worried now. Beyond the barrier of the entrance, he could feel an undercurrent of pain and anxiety layered like dust upon the room. “Are you alright?”

“Just fine,” Aziraphale called from the bedroom. There shouldn’t have been a bedroom, but Aziraphale had never been fond of small spaces.

Crowley didn’t argue, but he did move to the bedroom and push the door open with splayed fingertips. Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed, facing the door, his wings folded awkwardly. For a split second, Crowley thought they had been damaged, until he realized that their spindly, jagged look was due to the row of blood feathers. Aziraphale had shed all of his primaries and secondaries, leaving his wings looking bare.

“Oh,” Crowley said softly, stalling out in the doorway. “I didn’t realize. I thought you...”

“I’m fine,” Aziraphale said, sounding miserable.

“You’re hurting,” Crowley pointed out, not sure where he meant to get by saying it but sure that Aziraphale wouldn’t admit it.

Aziraphale studied him, and then dropped his gaze to his hands in his lap. “No more than usual.”

Crowley’s heart gave a little twist. Moulting flight feathers were always sensitive until the blood receded and left pinfeathers behind. Crowley had never been through a mortal moult that didn’t leave him aching, though he had simply assumed that it was part of Falling. Apparently, angels still suffered through the same, and this one had not learned any way to deal with it.

“There are some things you can do to lessen it,” he offered, not moving away from the doorway.

“Really?” Aziraphale asked, hope lighting his features. Warmth flared under Crowley’s breastbone to be the cause of it. “Oh, would you?”

“Would-” Crowley started, then realized what Aziraphale meant. He swallowed. He’d never touched a blood feather that wasn’t his own; demons all hid themselves when it got to this stage because even just a couple of broken or damaged blood primaries could discorporate a person. “Uh, w- I could, if you want...”

“I would be very grateful,” Aziraphale said quickly, shifting around to make room on the bed, of all places, and turning his back to Crowley so trustingly that Crowley felt a fierce surge of protectiveness. “I know it will mend on its own after a bit, but my magic won’t work against the pain _ now _ and it’s been _ weeks. _ Is it like this for you, too?”

“It is,” Crowley admitted, perching gracefully on the edge of the bed, ready to leave immediately if told. Crowley couldn’t help but wonder if the angel were just this trusting to anyone, or if he trusted Crowley especially. He hoped it was the latter- he knew too many demons that would take such an opportunity to do harm. “My magic won’t work either, but...”

He gestured to Aziraphale’s wing, and Aziraphale brought it around to lay it gently in Crowley’s hands. Crowley’s heartbeat spiked at the weight and warmth of it, but he kept his touch gentle as he maneuvered himself and the wing until he could rub gently at the meat of the bone. Aziraphale made a pained noise, but when Crowley hesitated, the angel shook his head rapidly and muttered for him to continue.

So Crowley did. He rolled his palm and fingers around the limb in a gentle but firm massage, feeling it go slowly slack under his ministrations. Crowley very, very carefully worked his fingers around the base of Aziraphale’s blood feathers and did his level best to ignore the deep groan of appreciation Aziraphale gave when he found the worst of it. Crowley pinched gently and released, over and over, up and down between the thick shafts of the feathers.

Then, as he had learned to do for himself, he gathered a little bit of his own preen oil from his wrist gland and rubbed it into Aziraphale’s skin, mixing it with a smidge of miracled chamomile oil. The combination, the way it reacted with his oil, would leave Aziraphale’s skin and nerves a bit numb and afford him some measure of relief for at least a few hours.

He drew lightly-oiled fingers down Aziraphale’s blood feathers themselves, knowing it would feel like pressing a tender bruise, but although Aziraphale grimaced, he didn’t flinch away from Crowley. Rather desperately, Crowley pushed down the way it made him feel to be so plainly given such trust, and finished his task with narrow-minded focus.

By the time he set Aziraphale’s second wing gently down upon the bed, Aziraphale had closed his eyes and relaxed into it so deeply that he looked like he was waking from a nap when he stirred. Crowley smiled, proud and fragile and full up with the sort of love he was definitely not supposed to feel. Though he wanted to keep his hands on Aziraphale, he was once more out of excuses.

“It should feel better ‘til tomorrow,” Crowley murmured warmly.

“Will you-” Aziraphale began, and then halted abruptly, his senses clearly coming back to him. “Well, I don’t want to impose. Perhaps you could teach me how to do that for myself?”

Crowley nodded, a little disappointed. He wouldn’t have minded coming back daily for this, but he understood why Aziraphale might not want that. “Course I can,” he agreed.

Aziraphale’s smile was radiant. “Thank you!” he exclaimed happily, giving a little wriggle, and then stilled. “Is there anything I can do? Maybe I can help you the next time you…?”

“Nah,” Crowley drawled, heart doing something funny in his chest. “You don’t owe me.” The argument felt familiar, like a scar.

He tried not to notice the dimming of Aziraphale’s smile, no longer lighting his eyes. It was only a fraction, perhaps unnoticeable except that Crowley was watching him so closely. The angel hated to leave debts unpaid, even when assured that there was no debt. For a second Aziraphale looked as if he might protest that very thing, but in the end he just nodded.

Crowley took his leave and tried not to think about how the night felt somehow colder than usual.

**IV.**

Crowley pushed open the bookshop door and the pastry box in his hands nearly leaped out of them to greet the floor at the sight waiting just beyond the entrance. Aziraphale had his wings out, one of them pulled forward under his arm so he could reach it easier with his hands, and the other twitching restlessly at his side. He hadn’t even bothered to _ sit _. Crowley quickly snapped and the door locked shut behind him, the drapes all slamming as closed as they could get. For good measure, Crowley snapped again to darken the windows, leaving them with almost no light.

Aziraphale made a sound of annoyance and Crowley heard another snap before light flared into being.

“That was unnecessary,” Aziraphale chastised, still rummaging around his wing with both hands.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Crowley asked incredulously. “Anyone could have walked in!”

Aziraphale gave him a withering look. “I doubt that, as the door was locked.”

“Locked!” Crowley exclaimed, gesturing back. “I just walked in! It wasn’t locked.”

“It’s never locked for _ you _ ,” Aziraphale told him, as if he should know that by now. “But no one _ else _ could have come in. Are those pastries?”

Crowley held up the box as if realizing for the first time that he was still holding it. “Uh… yeah, the ones you like from that little shop near my place,” he said, a bit absently. “You didn’t even close the windows up!”

Color finally bloomed on Aziraphale’s cheeks as he began to fold his wings away self-consciously. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Aziraphale bit out, and that wasn’t what Crowley wanted at all. He’d come here to make the angel _ happy _ and he’d botched it before the door even finished closing. “I wasn’t thinking about humans.”

Letting out a soft breath, Crowley took a few steps into the shop and offered the pastry box to Aziraphale. “I’m… sorry.” The word tasted so unfamiliar on his tongue, bitter and burnt. “I didn’t mean to be-” he waved a hand to encompass his behavior. “I’d just prefer if you… didn’t get found out and have to go back. What were you doing, anyway?”

Aziraphale frowned, the way he did when he had done something to himself he hadn’t figured out yet how to undo. “My feathers are coming in and you wouldn’t _ believe _ the itch. It’s never been this bad.”

Crowley shifted from foot to foot, debating the wisdom of saying what he wanted to say before he realized he was already saying it. “Let me see.”

Though he hesitated, Aziraphale pulled his wings back where Crowley could see them, and even before they were fully materialized, Crowley noticed the damage Aziraphale had wrought. The old feathers had started to fall out, or perhaps had been pulled out by scrabbling hands, and the new feathers had just started to break the surface. The skin around them was puffy, scratched red and raw.

Crowley grimaced, his own wings itching in sympathy. “Oh…” he said gently, doing his best to keep his hands to himself.

“Can you help?” Aziraphale asked hopefully. “Like you did before?”

Nodding, Crowley moved around to Aziraphale’s back and ran a hand smoothly over the ragged wing. “Come sit,” he instructed softly, giving a little tug. Aziraphale whimpered, but followed when Crowley moved toward the worn lounge. “Eat your sweets, I’ll fix you up nice.”

Although he couldn’t see it, Crowley could hear the flush in Aziraphale’s tone. “You’ll spoil me,” Aziraphale joked weakly, taking a seat with the pastry box in his lap.

“Shut up,” Crowley grumbled. Hellfire may have run under his skin but he couldn’t muster any of it to heat his words. Maybe because it was true; he did spoil Aziraphale a little. More than he perhaps should have, and definitely less than he wanted. “Left wing first.”

Aziraphale stretched his left wing back, to where Crowley stood behind the couch, and Crowley caught it. With care, avoiding pressing too hard on the inflamed skin, he positioned the wing to work on it. Half the feathers were still intact but enough of them had fallen out to be replaced that the wing looked like it had been mangled. Crowley knew better and, unfortunately, had seen far worse once upon a time.

“This isn’t so bad, angel,” he assured him, calling forth a cool touch so that when he pressed a hand to Aziraphale’s skin it chilled him. Aziraphale made an indecent noise of relief, or maybe of pleasure- Crowley wasn’t sure which, and Aziraphale did have half a pastry in his hand now as an excuse. Crowley smiled, and kept going.

For a while he simply worked his fingers in and around Aziraphale’s feathers, running a cooling touch to the skin, the scent of peppermint blooming in the air as Crowley spread a bit of miracled oil around. Aziraphale had no complaints, pressing into Crowley’s every touch and seemingly unable to control the small noises he made every time Crowley touched a new expanse of itchy skin and soothed the problem. Crowley somehow managed not to answer any of them with noises of his own, though it took almost all of his concentration to do so.

The skin, he knew, would take a while to actually calm down, but it would. The new feathers would take a few more days to get past the point of itchiness, but they would, too. All Aziraphale would have to do is wait it out without actually damaging his wings or his new feathers.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked much later, glancing over his shoulder as Crowley reached the end of Aziraphale’s right wing, ostensibly the finish line, and stopped moving without letting go.

“Sorry,” Crowley murmured, but he didn’t move his hands from where they lingered on the edge of Aziraphale’s wing. There was nothing else for him to do, but he was loathe to give up such a gentle moment. “You’re all set.”

“Oh...” Aziraphale didn’t pull his wing away either. “It feels a lot better, thank you.”

Crowley didn’t offer anything else. He wasn’t sure what else he could say that wouldn’t give him away. He thought maybe he already had done, knew that if he didn’t let go soon he definitely would, but still he gave a gentle squeeze to the bend of Aziraphale’s wing where he held it. Aziraphale’s wing shivered in response and his breath stuttered.

With a thick swallow, Crowley released him. “Happy to help.”

“You do, you know,” Aziraphale told him, glancing over his shoulder. “Help me. It’s-”

“Don’t,” Crowley interrupted, unable to listen to Aziraphale speak kindly of him, not right now. He would definitely do things he absolutely wouldn’t regret, but that would get him into a considerable amount of trouble.

Aziraphale gave him a slightly injured look, and though Crowley felt like a heel for it, he didn’t take it back. So Aziraphale just sighed and turned around, his wings folding back into the ether as he sat forward on the lounge, as though to get up.

“You never ask for anything in return,” Aziraphale said quietly. “You could, you know.”

That was somehow worse than kind sentiment, Crowley thought. “I… I don’t need anything,” he said.

It was a lie Aziraphale couldn’t call him on without opening a rather large can of worms they didn’t have the space to address. Because Crowley _ did _ need- in fact, he needed quite a _ lot _ , but he had contented himself with having some of it. He had _ enough_. He was allowed to stay in Aziraphale’s presence, allowed to touch him on occasion, allowed to love him from arm’s length, as long as they didn’t talk about it. They had the Arrangement, and the bookshop, and Sunday brunches at the Ritz after Aziraphale had decided how fast they could go. He had a lot, or at least more than he’d started with.

And that was _ enough_, he told himself.

Thankfully Aziraphale couldn’t call him on that lie, either.

**V.**

Crowley felt… well, the problem was more that he _ didn’t _ feel than that he did. He had been through a lot in his very long life, everything from Falling from grace to surviving the fourteenth century, and now the end of the world that didn’t really happen. In less than a week, he had lived through several fights with Aziraphale in rapid succession, Hell coming directly for him, losing his Bentley, standing up to the armies of Heaven and Hell and Satan himself right after, and the absolutely horrifying ordeal of swapping faces so he could stand up to Heaven in Aziraphale’s place.

So much had happened so fast he was not sure which was the worst of it, but he was fairly certain the few hours he’d spent thinking Aziraphale was gone for good was the frontrunner. The fact that so shortly afterward he’d been dragged off in Aziraphale’s stead and faced the death that should have belonged to the angel was not helping him in the least.

He cast a sidelong glance at Aziraphale, walking at his side to the Bentley. They’d just left the Ritz a moment ago, and Crowley had no idea what they’d ordered or if he’d actually eaten or just drank and watched Aziraphale. He suspected he’d spent most of it just basking in both of them not being dead.

Which is why it didn’t surprise him at all when he opened his mouth to say _ come home with me _.

What did surprise him, however, was that Aziraphale beat him to it.

“Do you think I might… s-stay with you again tonight?” Aziraphale asked, so hesitantly that Crowley nearly tripped to reassure him.

“’Course,” he managed. “You can stay any time, angel.”

Aziraphale’s smile was twitchy and weak at best. There were fears and grief haunting both of them tonight, it seemed. Crowley didn’t try to comfort him; of all people, he knew better than to try to use words to stitch wounds like these. Instead, he drove slowly and when he laid his hand palm up in the space between them, the interlinking of Aziraphale’s fingers in his own was as good as any suture his heart could have wanted.

His flat was clean and quiet and dark when they arrived, and he turned on too many lights to cope with it. Aziraphale pulled wine from his kitchen, even though Crowley was fairly certain there hadn’t been any the day before, and they sat in his sitting room and listened to music that Crowley didn’t remember setting on. Aziraphale sat a little too close, enough that they could touch, and did, just a little.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, before they’d even finished their first glass.

“Yeah?” Crowley asked, glancing over, though Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him.

“We could have died today,” he said.

Crowley knew the feeling. “We could die any day,” he said, instead of taking the bait. “We could have died lots of days.” He could still taste ash from the bookshop on his tongue, but he didn’t mention it.

“I don’t like that,” Aziraphale said, sharper and angrier than Crowley expected. He dragged his gaze up to meet Crowley’s. “I don’t… like the thought of you not being here. With me.”

“I know,” Crowley said, his tone coiling soft around the jagged edges of Aziraphale’s fear. There were a lot of words lodged in Crowley’s ribs, stuck in his throat, hiding behind his teeth, but he couldn’t get any of them to his tongue, past his lips, and so he settled for the only ones he had in hand already. “But I’m still here. With you.”

Aziraphale made a small noise that might have been agreement, and then he glanced almost sidelong at Crowley before he shifted uncomfortably. “Would you do something for me?” he asked, and the only reason Crowley heard was because nothing else made any noise at all.

“’Course,” Crowley told him. There was very little in all the universe that he wouldn’t do for Aziraphale, especially now.

After another hesitation, Aziraphale pulled his gleaming white wings into the mortal realm. He turned where he sat and swept one of them up to splay it on Crowley’s lap, huge and warm. Crowley forgot how to breathe. He glanced over to find Aziraphale watching him intently.

“There’s nothing wrong with them this time,” Aziraphale admitted, slowly and with a certain amount of purpose. “But your hands on my wings have always been a comfort. One I could certainly use tonight.”

Crowley softened and pulled his hands from under Aziraphale’s wing to place them atop it. Without a word, he burrowed his fingers into the soft coverts, seeking skin. Beside him, Aziraphale pillowed his head on a folded arm on the back of the lounge and closed his eyes, relaxing into Crowley’s touch.

While it was true that nothing was wrong with his wings, at least not the way things had been wrong before, Crowley spent his time seeking out any irregularities, any barbs out of place, any feathers not perfectly aligned, and he set them to rights. He could feel exhaustion similar to that which had closed Aziraphale’s eyes tugging at him and he let it melt him into the back of the couch, too, until he was mostly just petting absently over Aziraphale’s wing.

He didn’t talk about the low, deep thrumming noise Aziraphale made as he did so. It was not a purr or a trill or any mortal noise, but the satisfied almost-rumble of a contented angel. Crowley had been able to make it, once upon a time, and knew that it was involuntary. It was the sort of noise that hummed inside of his bones on a frequency meant more to echo out into the infinite cosmos than be contained by the four walls of a London flat. It was the sort of noise that reminded Crowley of everything he had once lost, and everything he had since gained, and he found himself thinking it was a trade well made.

Crowley’s hands fell still eventually, and Aziraphale made a plaintive noise and shoved his wing close, both pairs of his eyelids sliding slowly back from his eyes the way a cat’s did when woken from deep slumber. He’d just fallen asleep right here, Crowley thought with a fond smile.

“Bed,” Crowley told him. “You’ll get a crick in your neck sleeping like that. Come on.”

He tried not to make a show of it when Aziraphale clambered sleepily to his feet. As far as Crowley knew, Aziraphale had rarely slept in six millennia, usually only quick naps in particularly wonderful sunbeams or a short doze after too much to eat. He had not slept the first night he had stayed over, or if he had he’d shown no sign of it to Crowley, but this time he followed at Crowley’s heel all the way to his bedroom.

Crowley pulled up short. There were, in fact, two beds in the room. He had heard of the concept of having a guest bed for… well, guests, but he had somehow missed the implication that said bed should be in its own room. Therefore, instead of a guest room, Crowley had only a very large bedroom, and two beds within it, and he didn’t use either of them enough to remember which was supposed to be his own and which was supposed to be for guests.

“Er...” he said, glancing between them. “You can take which bed you like.”

Aziraphale looked between the two beds as though trying to determine which he thought Crowley used, or perhaps which he thought Crowley wanted him to take, before he finally asked: “Which one is yours?”

Very briefly, Crowley considered answering that they were both his, technically, but they were having a pleasant evening and he’d shot himself in the foot so many times in the past week that he was quite out of bullets. “That one,” he said, motioning to the left. It was up against the wall and seemed like the more likely choice, even if he didn’t remember the last time he’d slept in it.

Deliberately, and with a great deal of poise, Aziraphale moved across the room and sat, perched almost delicately on the edge of the bed Crowley had indicated to be his own. “Then I think,” he said slowly, “provided that you’ll be in it, that I like this one.”

**+1.**

“Aziraphale...” Crowley could not tell if it was a question or a plea. It had been six thousand years and they weren’t supposed to be so obvious, but the sudden weight of not having any rules to stop them was nearly crushing.

“It’s just- I don’t want to be _ alone _,” Aziraphale said, glancing furtively away for a second before looking at him again.

Crowley’s eyes flicked to the other bed in the room, barely a meter away from the one Aziraphale currently sat upon. “You wouldn’t be,” he said, quiet, giving Aziraphale one more chance to back out. To realize what he was saying. “You’d be right there.”

With a small, pained look, Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s too far, Crowley,” he said, Crowley’s name nearly lost in a quick, indrawn breath. His eyes closed and his fingers tightened around one another in his lap. “After trading places, after being _ inside- _”

It only took two steps for Crowley to close up the distance between them and put his hands over Aziraphale’s. When Aziraphale started and looked up at him, he tried to communicate how much he understood with just his eyes, and felt woefully inept. He didn’t think words would be better. He didn’t know what words could express how terrified he was of having an Aziraphale-shaped hole in his life.

“Don’t,” was what came out of Crowley’s mouth. Don’t say it, don’t hurt yourself, don’t be afraid, don’t go. Don’t stay if you don’t mean it.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, unable to look at him any longer, eyes falling to lock on their joined hands. “I know that you don’t...” He hesitated, swallowing in apprehension before licking his lips and sitting up a bit straighter, apparently resolved to continue. “I know that you indulge the way that I feel, and that I have no right to ask for more from you than you’re willing to-”

“What?” Crowley interrupted, letting go of Aziraphale in his confusion.

Aziraphale started to get to his feet, but Crowley didn’t move and there wasn’t enough space to stand, so he just sat back down and leaned back against the headboard to put space between them instead. The look he gave Crowley lay pinned between guilt and injury. “I can take the other bed,” he said. “If you don’t want me to-”

“Stop,” Crowley said sharply, and Aziraphale did, almost too quickly. “You think I don’t want this? Or you? Angel, I’ve wanted nothing else since you told me you gave that blasted sword away to the humans!”

It was Aziraphale’s turn for confusion. “What?” he asked, finally meeting Crowley’s gaze. “But y-you always… left.” He dropped the last word like he didn’t have the strength to hold it anymore. “Any time I-”

“Of course I left!” Crowley interrupted, throat tight and voice stressed. “I couldn’t have said no if I-” He cut himself off and found he couldn’t look at Aziraphale anymore. When he spoke, his voice was measured. “I _ wanted _ to say yes, but I didn’t want you to touch me like that because you felt _ obligated _ . I didn’t want you to do it because you _ owed me _ something.”

Aziraphale’s soft _ oh _ sounded the way it felt when everything slotted into place. “Oh, Crowley,” he said after another hesitation. “I should’ve… I should have been more clear. When I offered those things, it wasn’t because I believed I had a debt to repay. It was because I thought that a _ deal _ was the only way you’d let me touch you.”

Hope sparked in Crowley’s chest as he looked up again. Aziraphale gave him a small smile, one that hid at one corner of his lips and said wistful things in Crowley’s general direction.

“You must admit, you haven’t seemed very keen on it,” Aziraphale pointed out, wary but a little teasingly, and Crowley felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.

Crowley forced a smile that melted into something real as he spoke, yanking their normal banter into the conversation by its ear. “Only because if I let you, I knew I wouldn’t want to stop.”

“And you thought I would,” Aziraphale said, plucking Crowley’s unspoken words from the air between them. “My dear, when have I ever wanted to stop doing something I enjoy?”

“You don’t know you’d enjoy it.” He wanted so badly for the words to come off light, joking, but they just sounded fragile.

Aziraphale paused, and then made a face that looked like a shrug. “I suppose I don’t,” he said, and gestured to the empty space beside him on the bed with one arm. “Come here and let me find out.”

Crowley could feel it, the moment between where they stood in friendship and where they stood to end up in something else, and he wasn’t sure what would happen to one if they chose the other. He didn’t know if friendship survived the kind of love restricting the breath in his chest, or if it would only be changed by it. Love was no greater or lesser a thing than what they had made, but he knew that it was _ different_, and he didn’t know it like he knew their friendship. He was familiar with these rules, and he wasn’t sure what happened if they changed them now. If they changed _ themselves _ now.

But, he thought, as he set one knee upon the edge of the bed, they had changed other times and managed to keep going. They had both been angels once, and then been enemies fraternizing, and then been allies, of a sort, with their Arrangement. Acquaintances, at some point, enough for Crowley to come to Aziraphale’s rescue unprompted. Friends, eventually, and godfathers to a human child. Something… else, he decided, when they had swapped their faces.

Maybe they had already stopped being friends alone.

Maybe they each already had one foot in the door to whatever this was going to be.

Maybe that didn’t scare Crowley quite as much as it would have a week ago.

His wings shimmered onto the mortal plane as he clambered atop the bed, past Aziraphale to sit where he could drape one wing over Aziraphale’s lap, the way Aziraphale had done for him so many times. Aziraphale let him get comfortable, hands held up in the air above Crowley’s wing until he fell still, and then he laid them, warm and heavy, upon Crowley’s feathers.

Crowley shuddered and closed his eyes.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said breathlessly before sliding one hand along with the grain of the feathers. It made a soft noise, barely there, and set warmth blooming in Crowley’s chest. Aziraphale’s fingers wiggled into Crowley’s silky coverts, right down to where they met skin, and he threaded his fingers between the shafts, flexing and smoothing. It was not preening, not remotely- if anything, his fingers only served to stir disorder into the immaculately groomed feathers.

Crowley didn’t mind.

“I have waited a very long time for this,” Aziraphale continued after a few seconds of petting, his other hand following the lead edge of Crowley’s wing. “And I can’t say I’m disappointed in the least. But, you should know, Crowley…”

Crowley glanced up, the sudden spike of anxiety quelled by the light in Aziraphale’s eyes.

“I may never want to stop,” Aziraphale warned him.

“Let’s hope I’m that lucky,” Crowley said, finally relaxing into the relief of Aziraphale’s hands on his wings for the very first time, made all that much sweeter by the knowledge that it definitely wouldn’t be the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Please don't put oils on birds!! They get away with it in this because angels, but oiling real birds is not good.
> 
> My first 5+1! I've always been tempted to try the format but wasn't sure I could pull it off. When Mads suggested this, though, I knew it had to be done!! I hope you've enjoyed it ^_^


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